Puppet masters
(The Zhangzhou puppet troupe: Singapore)
Finally I have got around to writing about this, one of the many wonders of the East I was fortunate enough to stumble across in Singapore. The Huayi festival was held on the esplanade and featured dancers, singers and performers from across China to see in the New Year in Singapore. There was a massive array of free events for families to turn up to. Ying and I went there for a look one evening and literally stumbled across a puppet show in mid flow. We stood at the back of a crowd of applause to see if it might be a little diverting. It wasn’t. It was utterly astounding. We stayed for the second show that night so that we might catch a little more of the action, and in the end we encouraged Ying’s parents and aunt to come along the following night and again, we all stayed for two shows and none were disappointed.
The troupe had a varied repertoire of different stories and acts, we saw a couple of children’s stories, as well as some more traditional pieces. There were tiger fights and chases, acrobats and dancers, one puppet was even eaten alive and then coughed back up by a bilious tiger with the sound of cymbal crashing all the while in the background. Most notably, in my opinion, they performed a short section of a traditional play, introducing acrobats of various kinds – as far as I could gather, each of them was sneaking through the city gates by dazzling the official with skill and then racing past before they could be caught. There was an acrobat dancing whilst balancing a vase atop his head, a plate spinner, managing to spin two miniature plates simultaneously, a fighter whirling a wooden staff, a lady performing a double stranded red silk dance – that is her on the right hand side of this image. It was an impressive feat, to make the dance flow in a genuine, believable way. Then there was an archer who ended up firing a real little arrow offstage. After that, a pair of lion dancers in full costume emerged, but in puppet form, followed by yet another pair of acrobats who proceeded to fight one another and become so entangled that they seamlessly swapped jackets. It was mesmerising.
The town official who you can see on the left hand side of this picture was manipulated by the puppet master, a man who appeared to perhaps be in his mid fifties, but we learned was almost seventy years old. With great guile, subtlety and flair, he lent the foot high puppet an entire personality, as hilarious as it was breathtaking. The official took his hat on and off (which after some discussion, we imagined was facilitated by heavy use of magnets), he drank real tea poured by his servant, he smoked his pipe, fanned himself repeatedly with all the excitement going on – the range of movement afforded the puppets by their masters was astonishing. The puppet master, as you might be able to see from the photograph came in front of the curtain after each show to demonstrate some of the techniques used to make the experience so realistic and also so deeply hilarious. His crescent moon eyes, wide nostrils and constantly cheeky, alert expression did much to enhance the showcase – it is almost as if the animated faces of the puppeteers themselves are miraculously transferred to the static faces of the puppets, rendering them more lifelike, though their expressions have been painted on. Well, all except one puppet who was much larger than all the others. He was introduced in the after show demonstration as a ‘face changing puppet’. If you have never seen Chinese opera face changing before, look it up. The actors have many painted faces, each on different from the last, but changed in an instant. I believe the technique has something to do with layers of very fine silk being pulled over the face in succession, but I’m unclear as to how the puppet troupe managed to achieve the same effect with a puppet.
I wasn’t able to coordinate myself long enough to take a video, plus I was far too far away to have made a decent job. However, somebody else managed it at the very same event and you should be able to see exactly what we saw right here. I hope (if you’re in a country where it is available) that you enjoy the clip. It certainly depicts enough of the show that you have a flavour of the Huayi magic!
I must confess that I am writing this rather late as I was in Edinburgh last night watching a film with a friend. For the last two consecutive nights I have been at a cinema seeing a group called MINIMA perform a live score to two different silent movies. I went to my local cinema on Monday night to see if ‘Aelida – Queen of Mars’ with live accompaniment would be worth a look. I was delighted with the experience, looked them u and discovered a second date the following night in Edinburgh. I convinced a friend to come along and we went there just to see ‘The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari’ and come home. Again, it certainly did not disappoint and I’d recommend both any day. Only thing was, our train was cancelled and we were somewhat late in arriving home – it was past 1am when I turned in so I decided I’d write this today.
– Today Rosie is seeing her Gran in Glasgow. Scotland –
